Dispute Finder: Intel Program Finds Dubious Online Claims

Intel has launched software that sniffs out questionable claims at websites.

A "Dispute Finder" crafted by Intel researchers in Berkeley, California, for Firefox web browsers alerts Internet surfers to contentions that are contradicted by information elsewhere online.

"The reason this is important is that very often you'll read a website and not realize this is only one side of the story," Intel research scientist Robert Ennals said in an online video.

Dispute Finder automatically highlights text containing contested claims and then links to boxes summarizing points and counter-points. The data base is designed to grow and evolve with user input.

Votes regarding the reliability of information are used to filter dubious data. Researchers reportedly envision a version of the software that will scan caption information in television programs for specious claims and a mobile device capable of "listening" for questionable comments in conversations.

The mini-program, which works with Firefox web browsers, became available Thursday online at disputefinder.cs.berkeley.edu.

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Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090619/tc_afp/usitinternetsoftware

Tags: Intel Labs, DisputeFinder, Firefox, Berkeley, Dubious data, Rober ennals, Global IT News, Global Best Practice, contested claims, competing claims, opinion comparison,

Posted via email from Global Business News

26 People Who Mislead You On Twitter

Earlier this month, I covered various ways people are spamming Twitter in my Twitter’s Real Time Spam Problem article. Since then, I’ve been diligently reporting some of the more annoying spam I see. Despite this, none of the reported accounts have been closed. So, it’s time for a public spam report — and some education along the way.

Public spam reports suck because often they just bring traffic to the company or individuals who were spamming in the first place. Nevertheless, I figure it’s worthwhile to do in this case to properly illustrate the problem.

Let’s do the name and shame part first (I won’t link to the accounts, but people can visit them directly):

AdaCardwell

AmazingMoney

AmazingProfits

AmazinTwitties

AmberMoore48

bizpromotion

ChristineSnider

EmilyBrown13

EricaEsau

EvaJimmerson

ExpertMoney

HeidiSomarriba

JaneDDavis

JaniceAnderson

JoannaHill23

GloriaHayes

KimberlyCheek

KristiHernandez

Melinda_Martin

NetworkPromoter

onlinmarket

PaidPerTweets

Priscilla_Ortiz

socialclicks

SusanMccartney

RichOffAdsense

I’ve spotted all of these people — technically Twitter accounts, it could be one person running them all — tweeting links that don’t match the content of what they’re talking about.

Let’s take AdaCardwell, who recently tweeted this:

Devver Promises To Speed Up App Testing For Ruby Frameworks - http://rubyurl.com/…

Interesting, right? And I especially liked the use of the RubyURL shortener to make it seem even more legit. Well done, sir, well done. I’ve killed the actual link, so that I’m not giving any direct benefit to some pay-per-tweet program or affiliate along the way. It doesn’t lead to the “real” article or anything that matches the content of the tweet.

Instead, it leads me over to some supposed blog tips site. But then the trip is interrupted with an ad for another site, and you in turn get redirected to it. This other site is pitching a social “blasting” tool that no doubt helps other people do all the misleading crap that Ada is doing. Where is the “real” article, by the way? Five days ago, TechCrunch IT tweeted the “original” tweet:

techcrunchit: Devver Promises To Speed Up App Testing For Ruby Frameworks http://tcrn.ch/4IL by @leenarao

Part of the bait-and-switch for Twitter spammers is to grab a “real” tweet like this and simply swap the URL with something else. My Twitter’s Real Time Spam Problem article has some further illustrations of this. Earlier, I’d said I’d reported these accounts. That’s pretty easy to do. You follow @spam on Twitter. You’ll immediately get followed back. Then you can send a direct message with the spam report.

I’ve been doing that for two weeks now. Some of the accounts above, I’ve reported twice or three times. It’s done nothing. They remain active. Close them down, Twitter.

I know, I know. They’ll just come back. Hopefully, as I covered in my earlier article, Twitter will find a more automated way of stemming them. Certainly keeping them out of Twitter Search reduces the impact they have. And if Twitter can’t do it, then check out Clean Tweets, a Firefox add-on that helps (and see our review, Clean Tweets: New Add-On Zaps Twitter Spam).

As for those doing this type of misleading tweeting, you’re almost certainly too young to remember when in 1999, the US Federal Trade Commission took action against a site that was spamming search engines with listings that appeared to be about things like kids games but instead lead to porn. The FTC deemed that misleading advertising and shut them down. You sure you want the FTC potentially coming after you?

Source: http://searchengineland.com/26-people-who-mislead-you-on-twitter-21561

Tags: Twitter search, Firefox, Twitter spam, Cleantweets, US Federal Trade Commission, Global Best Practice, Global IT News, Spam, List of Twitter spammers, Techcrunch, Ruby Frameworks,

Posted via email from Global Business News

The Open source 'Brotherhood'

In this recent article from Silicon.com, Martin Brampton discusses the open source software and the reality of the people who comprise the open source software community.

“We all know IT is inclined to favour the young. But people working on open source projects are much more dramatically grouped than IT as a whole. Studies over the past few years have shown that three-quarters of the participants were less than 30 years old. A clear majority were single and most had no children. But the most extreme characteristic was that almost all open source developers are male. In short, open source software is largely written by young men with no family ties.”

Finally, the truth is out.

Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, we can get down to business...

“Open source projects can be split into at least three different business models. One is based on making software freely and openly available because it will enable the sale of related services - a model used by IBM and many others on numerous occasions.”

“Another is where commercial organisations see a need for software to exist but do not seek direct financial benefit from it. A prime example of this is Google's support for the development of the Firefox browser.”

“The third model is the host of projects that are wholly reliant on volunteers. Generally, only the largest of these achieve any significant income, and many do not seek any.”

Paradoxically, Brampton continues by stating that open source actually prohibits cooperation.

“The whole thrust of the open software movement was originally based on an attempt to sustain the culture that existed in earlier days, when algorithms were freely published and code swapped between developers.

“Despite this background, which should be reinforced by the legal situation that entitles anyone to use parts of an open source work for non-commercial purposes, projects seem extremely reluctant to utilise the work of other groups, or to agree common standards”

"Unfortunately, this lack of co-operation, endemic in the general run of open source projects, is one of the factors that leads to inefficiency and waste. At the best of times, most projects fail, maybe in the region of 95 per cent. One reason for this is there are too many projects and too few volunteer developers. A more co-operative approach would utilise the available effort more effectively.”

Certainly Brampton provides an interesting analysis here, but with the last paragraph above, we can detect that he is an outsider looking in to the open source community. Perhaps the open source community (ie those actually creating the code) is actually very happy with its level of efficiency. Indeed, it is probably misguided to even apply the corporate laurel of efficiency to a community not organized for such purposes. Maybe the open source community gathers primarily for creative reasons using software coding as a social conduit for interaction and expression?

http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39182126,00.htm?r=1